Happy Birthday to Me!!

Yay! It's my birthday!! I'm 31 today. I've always loved my birthday and I think I always will. Even though my day will be filled with childcare and gymnastics class, I will have a pep to my step knowing it's my birthday.

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Let me take you back to 1978. The land of the bell bottoms and the long, long hair. Here are a few pictures of me as a new baby.

Isn't my mom beautiful? She was only 22 years old. I was a big baby, wasn't I? Nine and a half pounds! No wonder I had such big babies.

I love this picture. I love the lighting and my Cupie Doll hair.

Snoozing through a stroll with fall leaves on the ground. Sounds like heaven!

Charlotte and I are leaving in the morning to spend the weekend with one of my best friends and her little girls. Jon and Evan have a boys weekend planned that includes bowling and scary movies... well, the movies will be for Jon to watch after Evan goes to bed.... hopefully.

See you guys Monday :)

He's Growing Up

This weekend I saw my little boy as both a baby and a big boy... I went into his room to wake him up from a nap and he didn't budge as I opened the door. I ran to grab my camera before he woke up.

He just started to open his eyes as I got to his crib. He looks so sweet when he sleeps. He also looks like my baby in this picture.

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Then 2 days later....

He wants to sit on the big potty! He's shown no interest in potty training yet... which is perfectly fine with me (he's only 28 mths). But this weekend he was successful on the potty twice!!

I'm not rushing out to buy tons of little boy undies just yet though. I have a feeling it'll still be a while before he's really ready.

I look at the last two pictures and see my baby growing up. Most of me is thrilled! I picture going on trips without packing everything in the whole world. I dream of eating at restaurants without the sticky high chair. I dream of Evan being able to join his sister outside to play without me being out there with him..... .. but there's just a tiny bit of me that'll miss that baby in cloth diapers... oh wait... he's hated diaper changes from the moment he was born. Okay, I'm ready for my big boy! :)

CRASH!! *Updated*

That's the sound my camera made as it fell from my fingers and landed on my kitchen floor.....
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Well, maybe it wasn't CRASH as much as "thump". I was trying to do too many things at once... entertain children, make their lunch, whip up a batch of brownies for Jon's band (story later), and take pictures for the blog at the same time. Multi-task much?
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I forgot to put the wrist strap on as I usually do and the camera fell while I was trying to snap a picture of melted butter. The lens won't retract since it's bent and the camera won't turn on for more then a split second.
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It's just a simple "point & shoot".. nothing fancy... but it may as well have been my left arm falling off. I feel lost without it and it's only been dead for 30 minutes. I take pictures of everything. I have so many pictures on our computer that we had to get an external hard drive just to have enough space for them.
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I'm not sure what I'll do about a camera right now. I'm sure we'll figure out something until then I'll just sigh heavily and look dejected.
Good thing I don't have a camera to take a picture of myself right now, right??


**Update: My mom is amazing. She's decided to buy me my birthday/Christmas present early and get me a gently used camera from ebay! I'm so lucky to have a mom that is so supportive of me. She knows how much photography means to me. The camera should be here in a few days!! THANK YOU MOM!!!!**

Pilot Mountain

This past Sunday, Jon had the great idea to drive to Pilot Mountain to see the beautiful leaves. Pilot Mountain is only about a 45 minute drive from us. This is the first time I've been up the mountain. I was so glad my mom could go along with us!

This is the view from about 10 minutes away. It's blurry but the sun was so bright behind me that I couldn't see the screen on the camera to see if it was focused.
There are two pinnacles of the mountain. The higher one is completely sided by sheer rock and the top has trees on it. The smaller pinnacle is where the road to the top leads. It was a steep drive and there were a lot of people competing for parking spaces. Luckily after looping around a few times we were able to find a spot.



It was chilly Sunday so we brought our light jackets. I forgot about the wind on top of a mountain. It was freezing up there!!!
I packed a picnic lunch for us so we set off to find a place to eat.

Nana showing Charlotte the farms below.

I could have stood there all day if it wasn't for the teeth chattering, finger numbing cold, that is.

We sat down to eat our lunches... chicken salad for the grown-ups and pb&j for the kids. Mom's poor freezing knees! She was fine in shorts when we left home.

Jon contemplating life and his role in it...

Enough contemplating... time to eat!

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Then it was time for me to break away for a few minutes to get some pictures of the beautiful leaves and the rocks.

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Awww....

The forest below was like a gorgeous carpet of leaves. This picture is worth clicking on to enlarge it.

Then it was time to go. We had a great time and loved the beautiful views. Next time we'll remember to wear more layers so we can stay longer.

Evan had so much fun that he couldn't stay awake on the way home... the sign of a great day!

A Quick Salad Before It Rains

The other day I dashed outside as soon as I got all the kids down for a nap to grab some salad greens since it was supposed to rain.
I put some Mache seeds in an empty bed also since the rain could water them in and I wouldn't have to drag the hose around. Mache is a VERY cold weather hardy salad green very popular in Europe. I learned about it in the "Four Season Harvest" by Eliot Coleman (I LOVE this book). If you watch Top Chef, they've cooked with it a lot this season. They pronounce it "Mah-sh". I like to pronounce it "Maa-shay". I'm probably wrong but it sounds better.
Hopefully my seeds will germinate well. This is one of the few crops that does better when planted so late in the year like this without protection. I may cover it with a row cover when it gets super cold though.

Okay, on with my salad... picked some leaf lettuce...

and more leaf lettuce....

And some spinach....

Why does some of my spinach look gorgeous and some look like this???

And I pulled up a few carrots to cut up into my salad.

I don't have a picture of the finished salad since my camera batteries died and I was too hungry to change the batteries.

Evan woke up from a nap and saw the biggest carrot on the countertop. The other kids wanted graham crackers... Evan wanted the carrot... and only the carrot.

He ended up eating the whole thing :) I guess he takes after me. Mom says that I used to prefer a carrot to a cookie when I was his age. Not sure if the same thing is still true though.... okay, definitely not true!

What Does That T-Shirt Say???!!

Jon brought home a t-shirt that the Dance classes at his high school had printed the other day. See if you can spot the reason these shirts had to be sent back.

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Do you see it? "Booties never lie" is supposed to be "Bodies". Jon thought it was so funny that he had to bring one home to show me.

Can you imagine what the screen printer must have thought while printing these shirts?

A Great Reason To Be Up At 7am

These are untouched photos I took yesterday of the sunrise. Quite a way to start the day.

How To Embarrass A Chihuahua

Knit him a sweater....
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You may not be able to tell from this angle but this is one sad, embarrassed doggy. He wouldn't stay still long enough for a better picture of his sweater. Oscar is getting up there in age and I thought a nice wool sweater would help him stay warm this winter. When I first tried it on him, he laid on his side and refused to get up. He finally got up and jumped on Jon's chest (where he is in the picture). I think he's trying to tell Jon that I've finally lost it.
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The sweater is a bit small. I used this pattern. It was a super simple pattern but I should have made it wider on the sides and knit the neck ribbing on larger needles. The pattern was written for a 10 lb. chihuahua so I thought I'd be fine since Oscar is 5 1/2 lbs. Maybe I knit too tight? Oh well, I don't think he would have liked it any better if it had fit properly. I'm sure he's on the phone right now reporting me to PETA.



I used Paton's wool in Autumn sunset (I think that's what it was called).

Anyone know a tiny Chihuahua that likes wearing sweaters?

My New Favorite Toy

My mom recently gave me her apple peeler/slicer/corer. With all of those apples I have to make into applesauce, her gift came at the right time!

It sounds like Evan is saying "poo-poo" but that's how he says "apple". Hopefully that one will become more clear in the coming months. :)

The Proper Way To Eat Butter Cookies

11 Days Early

We got a frost last night.... 11 days early. It was a pretty hard frost too, I think. The grass was pretty crunchy when I stepped on it to get these pictures. Luckily I knew about it ahead of time so I could get the cold frame on the lettuce yesterday afternoon.


I've never seen carrot tops with frost on them before. I have to say it's amazing! The frost outlines each leaf and it's just beautiful!


The clover in our lawn looked quite pretty also.

The broccoli leaves are a deep blue green this morning.

Here's the cold frame my dad made for me. Jon helped me put it on the lettuce bed yesterday. All but one row of lettuce fit under the frame. I should have picked that lettuce yesterday but I thought it would survive. I think I'll be proved wrong. I think it'll look pretty sad once they thaw this morning.

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The forecast shows that we may get another frost tonight. I'm wondering if it's worth it to break out the row covers of if whatever damage is to be done was done last night. The weird thing is that it's supposed to get up to 75* by Wednesday.

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The weather in the Piedmont of North Carolina is like a box of chocolates.... you never know what you're going to get.

**Edited to add... The lettuce looks great this morning... even the row outside of the cold frame!! Yippee!**

Fingerless Mittens... I Don't Get It.

Everywhere I look I seem to find a pattern for fingerless mittens. As the cool weather sets in decided to try knitting a pair to see if it would keep my fingers warm while I typed at the computer early each morning or while knitting. I knit up a fingerless mitten using sock weight yarn and this pattern. It was an easy pattern and knit up pretty quickly.

I knit the hand portion an inch or two longer so it would go down further on my fingers.

I tried my one mitt this morning while typing and I realized something... My finger tips are the only part of my hands that get cold. Guess what part of my hand was still cold while wearing fingerless mittens. I could have smacked myself on the forehead for not realizing these wouldn't help before knitting one up. So, I won't be knitting a partner for this mitt.

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So, does anyone out there wear fingerless mittens? Do they really keep your hands warm?

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Pumpkin in the Freezer.... Check!

Last weekend I bought 2 big Rumbo pumpkins from the Farmer's Market. They weighed in at 20.8 lbs and 21.5 lbs.
Here's how I got them ready for the freezer...

First I cut them in half.... being very careful not to cut my finger off.

Cool picture of the inside of the pumpkin, huh? Gosh, I love the macro setting on my camera!

Then I scooped out the seeds and smootz from the inside of the pumpkin.

I put each half on a baking sheet (cut side down), covered it with aluminum foil, put about a cup of water in the bottom of the baking sheet, and put it in a 350* oven for a little over an hour or until a fork could easily go through the skin and flesh. Then I let them cool.

After the pumpkin was cool, I scooped out the flesh (I quartered the pumpkin to make it easier to handle) and put the flesh into my food processor. Puree until smooth.

Here's the puree from one pumpkin... about 24 cups!

I scoop one cup of pumpkin puree into ziploc bags and lay them flat to freeze. This makes thawing much faster and makes them easier to fit in my freezer. Once they're frozen I put them in gallon sized freezer bags and put them in the chest freezer.

From my 40 pounds of pumpkin, I got about 50 cups of puree!! Bring on the pies, muffins, cookies, and anything else I can dream up to make with pumpkin.